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Talk:Barclay Arquebusier/@comment-45075715-20200221093120
Are people really getting such good results from Barclay Arquebusiers when directly comparing to Barclay Balestras? What I've found in my tests is very disappointing. When I heard about the introduction of firearms, I immediately looked through troop trees and found the Arquebusiers and tried a playthrough where I rushed to get them as soon as possible to see how they perform, so I went around taverns hiring Barclay Balestras and Arquebusiers ASAP. Mostly I found Balestras that I had to slowly upgrade into Arquebusiers. So in that process, I had a period where I had like 16 Balestras and 16 Arquebusiers in equal numbers, giving me an ideal test case to compare Arquebus on a higher-tier, higher-prof unit, against Heavy Crossbow on a lower-tier, lower-prof unit side-by-side. And what I found was so disappointing. I'd do things like situate both of them on top of a hill side-by-side, and my combat log would be like: X has been killed by Barclay Balestra. ... by Barclay Balestra. ... by Barclay Balestra. ... by Barclay Balestra. ... by Barclay Balestra. ... by Barclay Balestra. ... by Barclay Balestra. ... by Barclay Balestra. ... by Barclay Balestra. ... by Barclay Arquebusier. ... by Barclay Arquebusier. ... by Barclay Balestra. ... by Barclay Balestra. ... by Barclay Balestra. ... by Barclay Balestra. ... by Barclay Arquebusier. ... by Barclay Balestra. ... by Barclay Balestra. It's like the same number of Balestra were killing 5-10 times faster than the same number of Arquebusiers, and this happened repeatedly in multiple battles, and many involving lots of shielded enemies. What I'd notice outside the log is that the 16 Arquebusiers would fire a volley all at once and often only net a kill or two of the nearest enemy, then take ages to reload, while the Balestras were firing much faster and killing much faster (which, for a ranged unit, should be the most important thing to provide a reasonably steady stream of fire that's killing at a fast enough rate to protect themselves and their allies). It was so obvious the Balestras were racking up kills faster, even against shielded units like Vanskerry Raiders. It almost made me feel like Balestra->Arquebusier is more a downgrade than an upgrade. Maybe if I had a hundred Arquebusiers it'd be a different story, but would that really be better than a hundred Balestras at killing rates? I can't see how on earth any number of Arquebusiers vs. an equal number of Balestras would start to reach a point where they start to kill faster than the Balestras in equal numbers. Later I tried to rush CKO units with them to compare them against x-bow and bow, and I found similar disappointing results even in siege offense where they're cited to excel most. Right now I can't see anything particularly worthwhile about the Arquebus in the hands of AI control (in human control I could see the weapon being utilized very effectively to make the most out of each shot and not have everyone fire at the same time so that one group can be firing while other group is reloading to make up for the weapon's super long reload times). I currently can't see many redeeming qualities about the Arquebus in the hands of AI troops... maybe the only hypothetical one I could see is to make an anti-Noldor unit or anti-Demonic Magnus unit sort of thing, since both have such good armor and maybe the Arquebus could punch through their armor better than x-bow in very select scenarios. They might be a fairly cheap way to be able to take out super units, especially if the player is careful in ordering them to hold fire until the super units get close. Or it might be effective to put in a small number of Arquebusiers into an army so that if a heavily-armored, heavily-shielded unit gets close to archers or crossbowmen, the Arquebusiers might be able to put them down with one volley fired at near point-blank range to protect the archers/crossbowmen when they get around the infantry. I did actually see that happening a couple of times with the test where I had 16 Arquebusiers and 16 Balestras. Every now and then an armored cavalry unit might be able to get around the infantry and charge up the hill, getting dangerously close to the Balestras and Arquebusiers, and the armored cavalry and mount might withstand some bolts from the Balestras, but the Arquebusiers would fire a volley at him and instantly put him down. I do find the Arquebusiers doing reasonably well when units gets real close, almost making the Arquebus feel comparable to a deadly throwing weapon more than a long-ranged weapon. At medium-long range, I often see them fire a volley simultaneously (which is kind of bad -- ideally they wouldn't all shoot at the same time) and the number of kills is nowhere close to the number of shots fired, only for them to take ages to reload before they can shoot again. What I could see making the Arquebusiers so much more effective is a sort of "Enhanced Ranged AI" option similar to Enhanced Horse Archery. The main point of that option is to prevent them from firing simultaneously. One group fires, another waits until they're reloading, and then the second group fires. Or a poorman's simpler version is that they randomly delay their very first shot in battle by up to, say, 4-5 seconds (or maybe in proportion to their reload times). This will prevent all from firing simultaneously, and that would allow them to provide a more steady stream of fire with some firing while some others are reloading -- staggered shots and reloading instead of simultaneous shots and simultaneous reloading. Such an option might make the Arquebus at least comparable to X-Bows, and also that would improve the AI using x-bows as well and even improve the AI using bows (it'd prevent archers from wasting arrows firing like 30 arrows at one lone enemy walking up a hill and waste way more ammo than needed to kill him -- bows don't suffer much from reload times like heavier x-bows and especially Arquebus but they can suffer rapid ammo depletion due to lots of wasted ammo, and this sort of enhanced AI would help the AI waste less ammo with bows and better make up for lengthy reload times with x-bows and especially firearms). Another even simpler, more manual option is to split Arquebusiers into multiple units types wielding Arquebus -- like three separate upgrade paths in Barclay that ends up with a troop wielding Arquebus (maybe even with identical stats and equipment but just different color clothes to distinguish them). The point of doing that is to allow us to create separate hotkeys/groupings for each type of Arquebus unit. This would be tricky to control but then the player can have group 2-3 hold fire until group 1 fires, then have group 2 cease to hold fire and let them fire, then have group 3 cease to hold fire while group 1 and 2 are reloading. If the player just times that properly one time at the start of battle, now he will have properly staggered shots and a reasonably steady stream of bullets firing at the enemies. That would be tedious to manage and a little messy in comparison to an enhanced AI option, but it should be quite doable if you could separate groupings like firearms1, firearms2, firearms3.